A Summer Spent
by brittanitus
Summary: After Fitz finally got even with his nemesis Eli, Clare was left in ruins. Turning to her other best friend, Adam, she grieved, but could she have sparked feelings for him?


_I don__'t own Degrassi or any of the characters. The only thing I own is the plot line_.

"Clare…" Adam whispered. His voice hummed low, as if just for this moment, he let what little female mind set he had left.

I didn't respond. I had nothing to say. Not to him, not to anyone. I didn't want anyone around me. I just wanted to be alone. There was only one person who could have extended their hand out and I would have taken it. But he was gone. He was just laid down in the ground with a tiny puncture on the left side of his torso. His face resembled peace. Tranquility. As if he didn't suffer from such a terrible early death.

Walking silently to the grave dug out for him, I placed a single rose on the lid of his coffin. The hearse he drove fit today so perfectly. And after tonight, it was mine. His mother had given it to me. So I could have a piece of him always. Once the rose hit the mahogany wood, I turned on my heel and began walking away. Away from our friends. Away from our families. Away from everything I thought we had a chance to share together.

_I didn__'t even get a chance to tell him…_

My mind flashed back to every moment we were together. The way he smiled at me, the way I felt when we were together, talking or not. Everything about the two of us wrote a story. The kind of story most teenaged girls would read and cry at the way we felt towards each other, edging each character to finally admit their feelings to one another. Somewhere throughout our friendship, something bloomed. A rose of pure beauty. Something I had never experienced before in my life other than in my dreams. But I fell in love with him.

That why I did the things I had. It was all for him. Agreeing to go to Vegas night with Fitz, setting off the stink bomb, allowing him to blame Fitz for what I had done. I just wanted everything to stop, so he could live happily. With nothing getting in the way of his smile. The smile I lived to see each and every day.

But I guess, despite all of my efforts, I couldn't stop Fitz. I couldn't stop any of it. I was nothing if at fault for everything that happened. I was to blame for the knife that eased it's way into his side by the hands of his worst nightmare. It was time to face the facts.

Eli had died. Because of me.

The tears had turned into a fountain of effortless guilt that took over my entire being. I had just got to the parking lot before I collapsed. Whispers began to invade my thoughts. The stabbing replayed itself in my mind over and over again. Why couldn't I have done something? I should have just jumped in front of that knife. Fitz wouldn't have stabbed a girl would he? Or at least, he wouldn't have stabbed a girl to kill her. Hospital trips and trauma would have been better than the fate of living with the guilt of knowing I had played a part in not only my best friend, but my first love's murder. At least that way, I would have still had Eli with me. His smiling face would have still shown brightly during my darkest hours.

But instead, I was left with nothing.

"Clare, everyone is worried about you."

"Adam, please go away!"

Of course, my determined best friend didn't think to listen. He trusted me with his life, and I knew I should have been able to trust him. After he told me first about who he really is, something clicked. Especially with Eli. It was the three of us, always. Adam was kind of our middle man. Despite the fact he wasn't mentally a girl, his body still worked like one which helped him understand the way I perceived life as well as the masculine side of life that Eli lived in.

He sat down next to me and grabbed my hand. They were soft, like a woman's, yet had the emotions of a man's. He was the perfect person I had decided. Just the way he understood how to talk to me, yet still be as manly as he could while doing so. Adam was my brother. The sibling I gained after Darcy left to begin her life.

"Clare, I'm sorry. I know what he meant to you." He whispered before putting his arm around me. I rested my head on my friend's shoulder and grabbed his other hand. This was the safest I've felt from my guilt than I had since the stabbing.

"Adam, I didn't even get to tell him I love him…"

I looked up and our eyes met. For a second, his face turned into Eli's. His soft friendly smile invaded me and I didn't know what to do or say, tears just streamed down my face, dragging whatever makeup I had left on with it.

"Clare, don't ever think that. You told him. Everyday. Just with the way you looked at him. You never had to say it." With a simple kiss to my forehead, Adam stood up and extended his hand out to me. "Say we go test drive your new car? Eli would have liked that."

I pulled the keys out of my purse and stared out into the parking lot. A small smile leaked onto my face.

"He would have, wouldn't he."


End file.
